Rod Cameron
(Deceased)
Rod Cameron, actor, was born as Nathan Roderick Cox on December 7, 1910 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He stood 6' 4" tall and was ruggedly handsome. He starrred in these TV Series: "City Detective" (1953-1954) "State Trooper" (1957-1959) "Coronado 9" (1959). And he appeared on such TV shows as "Alias Smith and Jones," "The Virginian," "The Iron Horse," "Branded," "Bonanza," and "Laramie".
His Western films included "Heritage of the Desert" (1939), "Rangers of Fortune" (1940), "The Kansan" (1943), Trigger Trail" (1944), "Riders of the Santa Fe" (1944), "The Old Texas Trail" (1944), "Renegades of the Rio Grande" (1945), "Frontier Gold" (1945), "Panhandle" (1948), "Belle Starr's Daughter" (1948), "Stampede" (1949), "Stage to Tucson" (1950), "Wagons West" (1952), "Ride the Man Down" (1953), "Santa Fe Passage" (1955), "Yaqui Drums" (1956) and "The Gun Hawk" (1963).
He was an accomplished pianist who, strangely enough, divorced his wife and married his former mother-in-law. Rod Cameron died on December 21, 1983 in Gainesville, Florida.
Click here to see the complete filmography of Rod Cameron.
Deborah Camp
Camp was born in Missouri. She earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Tulsa, where she majored in journalism and minored in both history and American literature. She worked as a newspaper reporter in such Oklahoma towns as Jenks, Tahlequah, Tulsa and Broken Arrow.But she began selling novels in 1978, became a full-time fiction writer in 1983, and has 28 novels to her credit so far. She sold five books per year in 1983, 1984 and 1985. Camp is a charter member of the Romance Writers of America. And she is a member of the Tulsa Nightwriters and Oklahoma Writers Federation. The latter organization bestowed its "Teepee Award" on her in 1984 for the "best published novel". She conducts at least one seminar per year at Tulsa Junior College.
Camp writes under her own name for Avon and Crown, under the name Elaine Tucker for Berkley Publishing Group, under the name of Deborah Benet for New American Library, under the name of Elaine Camp for Simon and Schuster's "Silhouette" line and as Delaine Tucker for their "Wallaby Serenade" line.
Camp's books include Tandem (Woodhill, 1980), Wrangler's Lady (New American Library, 1984), Blazing Embers (Avon, 1987), and Belle Starr, A Novel of the Old West (Crown/Harmony, 1987).
Bob Campbell
Bob Campbell, cowboy singer and composer, lives in Kilgore, Texas. He worked as a cowboy as a youth, then went off to college and earned a degree in journalism. His writing led him to living in Nashville, Tenn. And there, while also writing for magazines, he also composed his own music.
Bob gets read to perform at the 2001
Oklahoma Cowboy Poetry Gathering at the
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
in Oklahoma City (Photo by Stan Paregien)Bob Campbell's songs have been recorded by artists Chris LeDoux and by The Desert Sons (see their album "In the Heart of the West," for Bob Campbell's great song, "The Old Borunda Cafe").
Walter Stanley Campbell
(Deceased)
Walter Stanley Campbell was born in the Flint Hills of Kansas in 1877 and his birth name was Walter Stanley Vestal. However, early in life he adopted his stepfather's name, Campbell, and lived under it all of his life. Yet he wrote largely under his original name, Stanley Vestal, and it is by that real/pen name that he is better known.He lived in Fredonia, Kansas until he was 12, then grew to manhood in the Guthrie and Watonga areas of Oklahoma. Campbell graduated in 1908 from what is now Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, where his stepfather, James Robert Campbell, was president of the university. Walter became Oklahoma's very first Rhodes scholar. He received both the B.A. and M.A. in English literature from Oxford University in Cambridge, England.
Campbell began teaching English at the University of Oklahoma in 1915. At his death he was Research Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma and was director of the university's professional writing courses. He influenced many professional writers, including WWA people like Clifton Adams, Bill Gulick, Jeanne Williams and Fred Grove. Campbell said of himself, "Research and writing on the Old West, the fur trade, and the Indian wars have been my pleasure; my job has been to teach others to write" (The Roundup, Oct., 1957).
He became a member of Wester Writers of America in 1954 and attended the conventions at Santa Fe and at Great Falls, Mont. He wrote 24 books, including Writing Magazine Fiction (1940), Kit Carson, Dodge City: Queen of Cowtowns, and The Old Santa Fe Trail, and Mountain Men (Ayer Co. Publishers, 1937). Ray Tassin wrote a book about him, Stanley Vestal: Champion of the Old West (The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1973).
Walter Stanley Campbell ("Stanley Vestal"), University of Oklahoma
English Professor, visiting with White Bull (Sioux Indian Chief). Photo
probably taken in 1940's.Dr. Walter Stanley Campbell died at the age of 70 of a heart attack on Dec. 25, 1957. He was buried in the Custer Battlefield Memorial Cemetery in Montana, for few anglos understood and loved the Sioux Indians as did he. Many WWA members got to visit his grave during the visit to the battlefield in June, 1987. In fact, I stood with friend Bill Gullick as we visited his former teacher and mentor's grave site.
Nash Candelaria
Nash Candelaria is the author of Inheritance of Strangers (Bilingual Press, 1885), Memories of the Alhambra (Bilingual Press, 1977; revised, 1982), and Not by the Sword (Bilingual Press, 1982).
Hal Cannon
Hal Cannon is the founding Director of the Western Folklife Center located in Elko, NV. He was also one of the founders of the highly successful "Elko Cowboy Poetry Gathering," held in the dead of winter each year. He was the founding Folk Arts Coordinator for the Utah Arts Council from 1976 through 1985.
Hal Cannon has published a dozen books and recordings on the folk arts of the West. And he has produced Public Radio commentaries on cowboys and the American West. He did a six-part series of 1-hour shows, called "Voices of the West". And one of them, "A Cowboy Christmas," won a bronze medal at the New York International Radio Festival.
He and his wife, known professionally as Teresa Jordan, created the series for The Savvy Traveler ( Public Radio's most popular travel show) called "The Open Road".
Hal Cannon has received three Wrangler Awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. He also won the 1998 "Will Rogers Lifetime Achievement Award". The governor of Utah bestowed upon him the "Governor's Award in the Arts" in 1999. And that same year Hal won the "Distinguished Alumni Award" from the University of Utah Communications Department.
And, as though that were not enough for one human being, he is also a great musician. And since 1972 he has had his own band, the Deseret String Band. He has a special interest in researching and performing 19th-century music from the West. They have toured extensively in Europe and the United States, and performed at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
Hal Cannon and Teresa Jordan split their time between a cabin in the mountains above Salt Lake and a home in Starr Valley, Nevada. Hal's literary work as well as speaking engagements are managed by Joanna Hurley Marketing and Literary Services, 300 E. Marcy St., Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501; 505.982.4006.
Yakima Canutt
(Deceased)
Yakima Canutt, a stuntman and actor, was born as Enos Edward Canutt on Nov. 29, 1896 in Colfax, WA.Canutt grew up on a working ranch in the Snake River Hills a few miles from Colfax, WA. He found out, early on, that he had a talent for riding bucking horses and for bulldogging steers. So, after serving in the U.S. Navy during World War I, he turned his attention to the rodeo circuit. And he did very well. It was during this period, when he was based in Yakima, Washington, that someone tagged him with the name "Yakima" and he liked it. But his friends simply called him, "Yak".
It was a chance meeting with cowboy movie star Tom Mix at a rodeo that led to his getting work as an extra in Western films. Hollywood soon learned that this young man was a rootin', shootin', fightin', ridin' fool. So they used him as a stunt man, then as the director of other stuntmen and eventually as a second unit director of filmmaking.
In those early days, he was well-suited for the silent films. But his vocal cords has been damaged by the flu some years back, making him less than ideal for a leading man in "talkies". So he concentrated on his stunt work and became the best in his field. He doubled for most of the Western stars during the 1930's and 1940's--men like Clark Gable and John Wayne.
Yakima Canutt doing another horse fall stunt.The fact is, it was Yakima Canutt--not young John Wayne--who jumped from the speeding stagecoach onto the galloping horses in the classic Western, "Stagecoach". And it was Canutt who was responsible for having developed a new style of staging and filming fight scenes, a technique that was successfully used in the early John Wayne films.
And his specialty, in the stunt field, was in safely staging large-scale events such as cattle stampes and cowboys vs. Indian tribe chase scenes. And it was his remarkable stunt choreography skill that resulted in the exciting chariot race in the movie, "Ben Hur" (1959).
Yakima Canutt, Rita Hayworth and Tex Ritter
in "Trouble In Texas" (1937).Time and luck finally ran out, though, when Canutt received severe injuries while filming "Boom Town" in 1940. And it happened again three years later while doing stunts for " In Old Oklahoma" (1943).
That was enough. Yakima Canutt hung up his spurs and let the next generation of stuntmen take over (that included two of his own sons, Edward "Tap" Canutt and Joe Canutt). From that point he turned his talent toward excelling as a "2nd Unit" director, one who took care of those less important scenes usually not involving the major stars.
In 1966 Yakima Canutt was given a special Oscar for his many contributions to the art of filmmaking.
Yakima Canutt died on May 24, 1985 at North Hollywood, CA. His remains are at the Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park (Garden of Remembrance) in North Hollywood, CA.
Click here to see Tim Reed's web site with many photos of Canutt, as well as his complete filmography.
Benjamin F. Capps
Photo by Stan Paregien in1986.Benjamin F. Capps was born on June 11, 1922, in Dundee, Tex. He married Millie Marie Thompson in 1942 and they had three children: Benjamin F., Jr., Kathleen Marie, and Mark Victor. From 1942 to 1945 he served in the U.S. Army Air Force and received three battle stars for his service in the Pacific. He flew 41 missions as a navigator of a B-24 bomber against such Japanese islands as Truk and Iwo Jima.
He received the B.A. degree from the University of Texas in 1948, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, and the M.A. in 1949. He taught English and journalism classes at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla. from 1949 to 1951. From 1951 to 1961 he was a tool and die maker. Then he became a full-time freelancer in 1961.
Capps has won his share of honors for quality work. He won a Spur from the Western Writers of America in 1964 for The Trail to Ogallala and, in 1965, another Spur for Sam Chance and a third in 1969 for The White Man's Road. The Western Heritage Center of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame gave him a Wrangler Award in 1969 for The White Man's Road, and they gave him another in 1974 for The Warren Wagontrain Raid. In addition, the WWA honored him by giving him the Saddleman Award in 1965. His book The Trail to Ogallala was selected by the National Association of Independent Schools as one of the top ten books in 1964.
The list of books he has written includes Hanging at Comanche Wells (1962), A Woman of the People (Univ. of NM, 1966), The Trail to Ogallala (Meredith Press, 1964, won a Spur Award), Sam Chance (1965), A Woman of the People (1966), The Brothers of Uterica (1967), The White Man's Road (Ace Books, 1969), The True Memories of Charley Blankenship (1972), The Indians (1973), The Warren Wagontrain Raid (1974), The Great Chiefs (1975), Woman Chief (1979). His articles have also appeared in Texas Monthly.
Capps has also been known to "pick and grin" on either the guitar or the mandolin.
This listing is far from complete and may contain errors. Therefore, all Western entertainers and/or their agents are requested to submit recommended changes by contacting Stan Paregien through his e-mail address.
Everything is possible for him who believes.
--- Jesus the Christ (Bible: Mark 9:23)
© 2003 by Stan Paregien, Sr.
